head to head · open source
cobalt vs textbus
cobalt has 43,461 GitHub stars, 3,812 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. textbus has 1,385 stars, 145 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. cobalt leads on adoption by 3,038% (43,461 vs 1,385 stars). cobalt is written in Svelte under AGPL-3.0; textbus is written in TypeScript under MIT. cobalt has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, textbus 10%. textbus was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (collaboration), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| cobalt | textbus | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 43K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Svelte | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-04-06 | 2026-06-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.8K | ⑂ 145 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick cobalt if
- You weight community size — 43K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Svelte
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick textbus if
- You want the textbus feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and textbus fits your workflow better
About cobalt
cobalt is a media downloader built around a single promise: paste a link, get the file, move on. It is a monorepo containing the source for an API, a web frontend, and related packages, written primarily in Svelte and TypeScript. The project lives in the modern web and JavaScript ecosystem, and its public surface is hosted at cobalt.tools, while the full codebase is published under the AGPL 3.0 license.
read the full cobalt overview →
About textbus
Textbus English 🚀 Textbus 是一个组件化、跨平台、数据驱动的富文本框架，支持使用 Viewfly、Vue、React 渲染富文本内容，并坚定的支持在线 多人协作 。你可以在 Textbus 中轻松创建出类似钉钉文档、石墨文档、飞书文档等完全自定义的编辑器。 官方文档 Textbus 官方文档 XNote 编辑器 XNote 是 Textbus 官方基于最新 4.0 版本开发的一个无头的、高性能的开源富文本编辑器。提供了开箱即用的大多数功能。也为需要自己开发编辑器的开发者提供了第一手的参考资料，仓库地址： 你也可以直接查看在线演示：在线演示 我最近开了新坑,分别是： 1. 多维表格： 2. PPT 编辑器： 欢迎大家支持。 介绍 我们一直致力于让富文本开发也能像普通前端框架一样，通过简明易懂的 api 和少量的约定，即可开发出使用流畅、交互丰富的富文本应用。 为了解决传统富文本开发的难题，Textbus 首次在富文本中引入了组件的概念，这让富文本开发就像拼积木一样，不再是前端领域不可跨越的天坑。不管你是富文本开发领域的老鸟，亦或是前端的新手，Textbus 都将帮助你把富文本做得更好。 Textbus 的特点 + 组件化 ：根据富文本的特点而专门开发的组件化系统，让富文本编辑支持复杂布局，插入特殊控件等就像现代前端框架一样，非常的简单。 + 完全可控 ：由于 Textbus 采用完全的数据驱动，输…
read the full textbus overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cobalt or textbus more popular?
cobalt has 43,461 GitHub stars and textbus has 1,385. cobalt has the larger community by that measure.
Are cobalt and textbus free?
Both are open source. cobalt is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and textbus under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cobalt and textbus?
cobalt is written in Svelte and textbus in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, cobalt or textbus?
Choose cobalt if you want the larger community (43,461 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose textbus if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.